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Friday, 25 June 2010

New Portraits

I've created a new portraits section on my website and started updating it with some of my recent JKPP portraits. It's such a motivating group I've really been learning new ways to paint and draw and although I've drawn many pencil portraits in the past I used to lack the confidence to paint portraits. Now I can't wait to try out a new technique on a new face. Thanks again Julia!
I've also joined a new group with similar ideals, called Doodle Face. Even more faces to have a go at!

My website home page shows a random selection of images - sometimes I just can't stop refreshing the screen to see what combination comes up next!

Here are a few of my latest favourites:

The Happy Painter - Donna

I'm a huge fan of Donna's painting style, she is so free and expressive with her watercolours, I would love to learn that skill. I started this portrait with the hope of emulating some of Donna's style and capturing some of her energy and happy spirit. But my initial attempt was failing to capture any likeness.
So, I dampened the face area and started again with a more accurate drawing (in my initial attempt I'd begun with watercolour without any drawing lines). I then used Gouache to build up face. I've had some lovely comments on Flickr about the texture of the skin - but I wasn't really thinking about it's texture, I was just trying to get the right colours and tones in the right places - and it seemed to work quite well. Although this isn't a perfect likeness, it's quite close and I'm pretty happy with it as a painting.

What Donna said - "Oh yeah! The eyes, the eyes have it! And I am jealous of the way you do noses and skin!!! Yeehaw. I LOVE IT!"

Fairsquare - Sean Cronin

Sean's drawings are stunning, he's done many beautiful portraits for JKPP including a great one of me which I posted in my last blog - it's one of my favourites and really captures my frowning stare!
After my experiments with Gouache on Watercolour paper I thought I'd have a go with some Acrylic paper I've had for years but never use. I drew a quick pencil stetch to begin with and then used a combination or watercolour and acrylics to loosely sketch in the colours and tones. Although this isn't as 'finished' as it could be I really like the fresh and loose feel of the painting, so I decided to stop before loosing that.
As soon as I'd taken a photo of the portrait it was much easier to see where i'd gone wrong with the likeness, but nevermind! I think I captured Sean's sparkly eyes and slightly cheeky smile at least.

What Sean said - "Franny, you've got me! I'm dead chuffed! This is great. Thank you so much - love this."

Devon Lawrence

Devon is the only person so far who has chosen to tackle a portrait of me at an early age. His drawing is so beautiful and delicate, it's really lovely. Devon also has a fantastic set of photo references to choose from.

In attempt to learn from previous mistakes I tried to draw a more accurate pencil sketch before starting to paint this. Unfortunately my impatience kicked in and I didn't entirely perfect the likeness before diving in with the watercolour. In this painting I've tried to keep my washes large and fresh, and avoid having to rework them too much. I'm fairly happy with the results even though it did start to get a bit overworked in places. I also had to use a little bit of white watercolour in places to pick out the highlights - I would have preferred to have managed to keep the white paper showing for these, but I wasn't careful enough.

2 comments:

Franny, your painting of Donna was one of the best I've seen on Flickr of the Happy Painter, and even now I can't imagine how you summoned up the courage to paint over her in another medium. I could never have done that, rather walk away from it, but you made such an incredible improvement, especially with the skin tones, forming of her face and increased likeness.

Like you, JKPP has had an enormous effect on me and brought my paintings along in leaps and bounds, though I've continued to paint in a similar style except for the cheeky one I did of donnaDMC.

I've looked around your website and love some of your landscapes, which have such a peaceful atmosphere, devoid of people, which is where you differ from me as I am increasingly putting more people in!

Hi Frank,thank you so much for your lovely comments. I know what you mean about having the courage to paint over a painting, but it was so terrible I thought I'd give it a try!I don't tend to walk away from a painting that's going wrong - I'm much more likely to work on something too long and ruin it!Your portraits are really great, particularly some of the recent ones. I really admire the freshness and looseness of your style. It's the sort of technique I'm always trying to learn.You are much braver than I am, adding people to landscapes - I do tend to try and keep my subjects simple, and avoid too much detail.I'll be keeping an eye on your blog too :-)

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About Me

I'm a part time artist & crafter. I paint mostly in Watercolours but I also love printmaking and dabble in collage, mixed media, patchwork, jewelry making, pottery and more.
Please check out my links for more of my work which is available as prints and originals on Etsy and CafePress.